A transplantation of a tissue or an organ which is frequently performed in recent years is attracting attention as a method for recovering a dysfunctional organ or tissue. However, a rejection symptom for excluding a transplanted part after an operation is a serious problem and it is not going too far to say that a success of the transplantation depends on prevention of the rejection symptom.
In these situations, an immunosuppressive agent is being used for prevention and a treatment of a rejection symptom against a transplantation of an organ or a tissue or a graft-versus-host reaction which is caused by a bone marrow transplantation and is an important pharmaceutical agent. The immunosuppressive agent is often used for treating not only a rejection symptom caused by a transplantation but also autoimmune diseases such as chronic rheumatoid arthritis, allergic diseases and the like. Recently, various immunosuppressive agents such as azathioprine, corticoid, cyclosporin A, tacrolimus and the like are developed and clinically used but they are not so satisfactory in view of their effect and side effect.
Many antitumor agents are also clinically used, but most of them have both a potent antitumor activity and toxicity as a side effect, which limits the dosage.
In these situations, a development of an immunosuppressive or antitumor agent which has a potent activity and can safely be used has been desired.
The compounds which belong to the same type as the compounds of the present invention are described in Chemical Pharmaceutics Bulletin, 24 (4). 613-620 (1976), The Journal of Antibiotics, 32 (6), 559-564 (1979), Agricultural Biological Chemistry, 49 (3), 867-868 (1985) and the like. In these literature, these compounds are indicated to have a toxicity against sea urchin embryo cells and Hela cells but their immunosuppressive and antiinflammatory activity are not mentioned at all.